In August 2025, 4chan and Lolcow LLC, which runs the forum Kiwi Farms, sued Ofcom in federal court in Washington, DC. They asked the court to declare that Ofcom's orders cannot be enforced in the United States.

Ofcom ducks

Ofcom did not argue that its orders were lawful in America. It argued it could not be sued there at all: as an arm of the British state, it claimed immunity under the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

In September 2026, Judge Rudolph Contreras agreed and dismissed the case. He never decided whether Ofcom had broken the US Constitution.

The sting in the tail

But the judge did not stop there. To collect its fines, Ofcom would need an American court, and that is where 4chan could raise its constitutional rights.

"American courts are not necessarily required to enforce foreign penal judgments."Judge Rudolph Contreras, US District Court, DC

US courts, he wrote, "generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution". He pointed to Matusevitch v. Telnikoff (1995), in which a Washington court refused to enforce a British libel award because it clashed with the First Amendment.

Those remarks do not bind any future court. 4chan's lawyers still read them as a message to Ofcom: your reach stops at the American border.

Byrne & Storm said Ofcom had "ducked behind sovereign immunity" rather than defend its orders. "This situation is lawless, and only Congress can fix it."

Five weeks after the ruling, Ofcom's chief executive was asked about unpaid fines by the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 20 October.

Dame Melanie Dawes said Ofcom has issued 11 fines under the Online Safety Act. Two have been paid. She said Ofcom would chase the money as far as it could, but that the real test was whether companies changed their behaviour.

Preston Byrne posted the clip within the hour: "Ofcom admits defeat in the 4chan case." Ofcom, he wrote, "knows its jurisdiction ends where a foreign court's jurisdiction begins."

Four said no

Byrne says Ofcom has sent orders to about 200 American websites, and "only four of those sites, all of which are my clients, refused, and only one is 4chan."

What's next

Byrne expects Ofcom to ask a court for "business disruption measures", which would order British internet providers to block a site. His client, he says, has accepted it may be blocked in the UK.

In Washington, two bills would let Americans targeted by foreign censors sue them in US courts: the GRANITE Act and the HOMEFRONT Act. "We Americans have plenty more work to do on this side of the pond."